


Zombie Survival 101: Stick close to the punk with the baseball bat

by pandacheeze



Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, Inspired by World War Z, Kid's zombie slayin' skills, unlikely friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 04:39:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13426989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pandacheeze/pseuds/pandacheeze
Summary: The zombie outbreak is pretty much everything that Law had imagined it to be. Guess he had it coming for working in a high-risk experiment facility. One thing that Law didn't expect is getting his ass saved by a couple of blue collar workers who seem like they were born to beat the shit out of the walking dead.





	Zombie Survival 101: Stick close to the punk with the baseball bat

 

Through a corridor full of flickering lights and blaring alarms, Law trots as fast as he can while carrying a portable cool box in both arms. Holding a bulky object in front like this impedes his movement, but the box is too heavy to lift with one hand because of its built-in cooling system. 

It's just like one of those B-movies. An employee was careless this morning, one of the facility's captured test subjects escaped and went on a biting spree, then all hell broke loose. As a result, Vegapunk Laboratories is currently overrun by freshly turned zombies. Lots of stuff are either broken or burning. No hero squad seems to be charging in to save the gowned nerds. Worst of all, Law had to abandon his unfinished butterscotch latte.

It seems that his unlucky streak isn't over yet because some pipes behind the wall decide at that moment that they want to blow up with a deafening KABOOM, sending both man and cooler toppling.

"Unf!!" the virologist wheezes. The pain from the fall is nothing compared with the panic from hearing the cool box tumble onto the floor. The impact might have damaged the antivirus vials inside.

The sound of shuffling feet and clacking teeth from the distance catches Law's attention. He looks up and yessiree, a zombie has just rounded the corner in front of him. Upon spotting the human, it makes a loud gurgle and sprints for him.

Being weaponless, the wisest option would be to bolt the other way. In fact, Law could have already escaped from the lab if he hadn't bothered bringing the clunky cooler along with him, but if he took out only the vials, the room temperature would soon ruin the antivirus agents. 

Terrified and adrenaline-addled, Law kicks the undead motherfucker in its gnashing teeth, sending it sprawling on its back. To ensure that it _stays_ down, Law grabs an abandoned trolley close by and runs it over the bastard several times, tearing as much ligaments and joints as possible, particularly the hands and feet. He sort of feels like a psychotic murderer, but in a crisis like this, you either kill or be killed, and Law pretty much wants to live to see his next sunrise, thank you very much.

After one final bash, the virologist leaves the trolley on top of the mutilated zombie and diverts his attention to the cool box. He unclasps the locks and opens the lid to check the contents. A few vials are cracked and leaking, but most of them are still intact. Phew.

Standing up with his hands on his waist, he hangs his head down and stares at his own shoes in exhaustion. And it's in the silence that he hears something. Something shuffling close. _Too_ close.

Whirling around at breakneck speed, Law slaps gnarled fingers away just in time before they grab him. This zombie is quieter than the one still snarling on the floor. It steps closer to the human, who's forced to retreat backwards.

Well, _now_ he's royally fucked, being trapped in a narrow corridor between a walking dead and an overturned one that's somehow still able to reach its broken limbs toward Law. He can't die here, goddamnit. His hometown needs him. _Lammy_ needs him.

The sudden sound of rapid footsteps from the other side of the dim corridor has Law looking behind the zombie. He sees a silhouette running toward them with some kind of long weapon in hand.

"Duck!" the virologist hears his incoming savior bark before the other person comes into the light. Big, red hair, gray uniform shirt and pants, and wielding a ...bloodied baseball bat?

Law puts two and two together and does as he's told, crouching low. With a brutal whack in the head from the tall guy's aluminum bat, the zombie crashes into the wall, bits of brain matter splattering on the white surface. The redhead beats the zombie's skull many more times until it looks more like pulverized meat pasted on the wall and it eventually collapses unceremoniously onto the floor.

Then the person turns around to face Law. It’s Eustass Kid. One of the brawny men who shuffle and cart equipment around the facility. Sometimes when Law doesn't have time to go out for lunch, he'd have the redhead go outside and buy some takeout for him. Kid gladly does the favors because Law always gives enough money for him to buy some food for himself, too.

"You okay, doc?" Kid asks.

"Uh. Yes. Thanks a lot," Law replies while wiping beads of sweat from his temple. He takes in the larger male's battle-worn appearance. His vivid hair's a tousled mess. His clothes are stained with coagulated gore. His aluminum bat is littered with scratches but still looks durable.

Overall, Kid has the glowing aura of a survivor. Someone who's capable of muscling his way out of this ravaged complex. Law comes to realize that he doesn't need the fucking SWAT or whatever cavalry anymore. All he has to do is stay close to Kid. 

"Can I tag along with you?" Law asks. Thank god he's always been nice to the redhead. If he were like his stuck up colleagues who looked down on blue collars, he wouldn't have the gall to make such a request.

"Yeah. Sure. Problem is, I can't find a way out that's not clogged by zombies. Even the cargo elevator's swarming with them undead sunova bitches," Kid replies in his street slang, leaning on the knob of his long bat. 

"We could use the executive elevator. It leads to a separate entrance directly connected to the VIP parking zone."

Only high-level officers like Law can use this privileged elevator, which requires a special key to operate. All the management must have long since fled the facility through it, saving their own pansy asses as well as the antivirus formula files and papers. Law, on the other hand, decided to fetch the actual antivirus vials from his lab first.

"Lead the way, doc," Kid says, sweeping his bat in the air with one hand to cover whichever direction that they'll be going. Law goes to retrieve his unwieldy cooler.

"That's gonna slow you down. Just ditch it."

"I can't. It's got the enhanced antivirus--"

"I know you're smart enough to whip up more of those shots, doc. They're not worth risking your life right now."

Oh, but it's not _Law's_ life that's on the line.

"I can't lose this batch," Law grits out. "My sister... She's turning."

The speed of one's zombification depends on the severity of the wound. The fastest case is being bitten in the jugular, in which the victim's palpitating heart will quickly pump the zombie's contagious slobber throughout the other parts of the body, finally ending up in the brain in mere minutes. However, a small scratch on the arm would require a few days for the Z virus to conquer its host. It's been observed that the infected generally have at most three days until their mind and body degenerate beyond recovery if they don't receive the antivirus, which has actually been around for some months but still had a fifty-fifty percent success rate.

Law's team has been improving the formula. It was perfected just a few days ago, and at just the right time. Last night, Lammy called him from her hospital in Flevance where she works as a nurse and contact with all sorts of patients is inevitable. Voice laden with fright, his sister told him that what she had thought was some sort of extreme fever tested out to be the Z strain.  _How long has it been since the first symptoms?_  Law asked, clammy fingers gripping the phone tight. _Yesterday. A couple other nurses who got sick earlier already turned and had to be… be 'put down'. Please hurry, Law. I don't want to... hic...,_ Lammy trailed off, words turning into sobs.

"Today’s her third day. I don't have time to make new doses. She and some other people need the cure  _now_."

He locks eyes with the redhead for a moment. The latter ruffles his vivid hair before letting out a sigh.

"Fine. But you're carrying the box by yourself 'cuz I need both hands to fend off those dead bastards."

Together, the two men head to the executive elevator. Kid flogs the occasional zombies out of their path with Law in tow. So far, Kid is doing a spectacular job whipping deteriorating ass, and is currently singing nonchalantly as if they weren't in the heart of a hot zone.

"...if they don't win it's a shame. 'Cuz it's one," _THUD_ "two," _THWACK_ "three strikes you're out in the old," _WHAM_ "ball," _BAM_ "game~" _FWOP_

"Where exactly did you get that bat?" Law asks curiously while steering clear of the fallen zombies left and right. 

"This baby? Borrowed it from one of the after-work baseball club dudes."

"More like stole it," Law says, tone not accusing but playful. He's got his hopes high. At this rate, they should make it out alive.

"Who cares? 'S not like the owner will want it back. I bet they're all dead by now. I mean, re-animated," the redhead corrects himself before bashing a zombie in the head, causing it to stumble sideways and collide with a wall. Then he crushes the undead's ugly mug with the blunt tip of his bat

They walk past one of the labs partitioned off by Plexiglas. Striding behind Kid, Law looks into the lab. He sees several zombified peers wandering aimlessly inside. Two blond figures catch his attention. 

"Oh, no. Not you guys, too," he mumbles upon spotting the genius brothers. Glasses askew, Doffy is staring into space with opaque eyes. His lips are missing, as if they were ripped off forcefully. Teeth and gums bared, Doffy looks like he's wearing a perpetual creepy smile. Standing nearby is Cora-san whose mouth and cheeks are smeared with blood. Law cringes at the idea that Cora-san might have munched on his own brother's face. 

The duo successfully bulldoze their way to the executive elevator. While Kid's swinging at the zombies that followed them there, Law jams his key into the slot and pokes the 'down' arrow. The elevator takes it sweet time moving from the ground floor to theirs. Kid keeps swatting the incoming zombies, but their ever growing number is becoming a problem. They pile up in front of Kid and try to grab his feet, so he has to constantly back up until he's bumping into Law.

The elevator's soft 'ding' sounds like heaven opening its gates to Law's ears. He quickly darts past the doors and hears Kid yell before flopping backwards into the elevator. The moment that all of the redhead's limbs are safe inside, Law hammers the 'close' button like a madman. 

One mottled head lodges itself in between the doors, preventing them from closing properly. Kid plants the sole of his shoe in its face and forces it out to let the doors slide into place.

The redhead loosens his grip on the bat and remains catching his breath on the floor. When Law moves to help him up, Kid dismisses him with a tired wave.

"M fine."

"You're panting like you just ran a marathon. Let me–"

"Don't touch me!" Kid hollers all of a sudden while scrambling to the other side of the elevator. Now that they're facing each other, Law spots a rip on the other's left sleeve. Beneath it is a bite mark. A really nasty, mangled one.

Both men stare at each other in shocked silence, with Law gawking at Kid's wound and Kid gauging Law's expression.

"It's... It's alright," Law finds himself saying, despite knowing that it's definitely  _not_ alright. A bite like that can turn you in mere hours. 

"I... We...," he continues blurting, but Kid shakes his head to cut him off.

"Just... don't come too near me. And don't even think of wasting your low stock of the cure on me. You've got more important people to treat."

Before Law can even think of a reply to those words, the elevator is dinging again. Kid gets up with a grunt and moves in front of the closed doors, poised in a baseball batter's posture. When the doors open, he cautiously steps forward and Law follows him.

As expected, the executive lobby is vacant. They stride to the double glass doors to the parking lot and Law taps his employee ID card on the reader on the wall to unlock them. Kid holds one door open for him to pass first. Outside, Law can hear the military's cacophonic sirens and call for survivors just beyond the parking building's entrance.

A clatter behind him makes the virologist look back to see Kid's aluminum bat rolling on the floor, and Kid has closed the door with himself still inside. 

"Kid? What the _heck_ are you doing?!" Law demands, already stretching his lanyard to tap his card on the outside reader. Kid is faster. He slams his heel into the reader on his side.

"Quarantining myself, duh," comes Kid muffled response through the glass panels.

Law yanks at the doors, but the malfunctioning access control system keeps them shut.

"You'll be safe with those soldiers. Take my bat in case you meet a stray along the way. Swing with your whole arm like this. Easy as pie."

"I couldn't hit a fucking piñata even if my life depended on it. Eustass Kid, you suicidal jerk, get out here this instance or I swear to god–"

A wail from the distance startles Law. He turns around and spots a brunette zombie in a suit hobbling from a blood-speckled Jaguar toward him.

_Shalulia? She didn't get in her car in time?_

Behind him, Kid raps the door, telling Law to pick up the bat and aim for the bitch's head. Law puts down his cooler and grabs the sports equipment-turned-weapon with shaky hands. 

"Easy as pie, my ass. Baseballs don't have fucking _teeth,_ " he mutters under his breath, holding his bat as high and ready as an inexperienced person can. The re-animated woman lunges at him. Her face comes so close that he can see the blue veins crisscrossing her fair skin, which break upon contact with his bat.

With his brute strength, Kid had made zombie bashing seem effortless. It's actually not, Law discovers. He can't slug her hard enough to knock her down. She keeps swiping at him until he's backed against one of the doors. Law can feel the panels rattling. Kid must be trying to break the glass because he's shouting stuff along the lines of  _Hang in there! I'm bustin' out!_ But at this point, Law's going to be zombie chow before Kid can get out. He uses his bat to uppercut the growling undead, gaining some much needed distance between them.

"Hey fugly!"

The female zombie turns to look at the source of the voice and is met with a fist clad in a thick glove, sending her face-planting on the ground. Then the tall greenhead stomps on her spine, permanently breaking her back bone in order to keep her lying in that awkward position.

"Bartolomeo?"

"The one and only!" the other male says, straightening up with a mock salute that's a bit too cheerful for the situation. He's another one of the workers whom Law is on friendly terms with. The guy's uniform is also spattered with blood, but his gelled high hair-do withstood the chaos. 

"How did you get here?" 

"Came down the parking building's outside staircase. It's actually a great place to fight off zombies. If they got in my way, I could just hurl them over the rail," the taller male explains, all the while bumping his gloved knuckles together absentmindedly. Law notices that they're the cut-resistant gloves for handling dangerous objects in the labs. Seems like these worker types really know how to make do with surrounding items during an apocalypse.

"Dude, you comin' or what?" Bartolomeo asks the trapped redhead, who's standing still behind the doors. Then Bartolomeo sees the bleeding bite mark.

"Aw, bro. They got you good."

Law smacks his palm against the door.

"Kid! Come out, damnit!"

"Just go, doc! Barto's enough to protect you. I told you. I ain't worth your shots–"

"No, **_you_** listen to me, you self-depreciating bastard.  ** _I_** am the one who made the antivirus, so **_I_** am the one who gets to decide who's worth it. And **_I_** say you're more than worth it, Kid. I wouldn't have gotten this far if you hadn't brought me out, so quit stalling and hurry out here so I can give you a dose," he shouts, finger jabbing at the glass in front of Kid's chest. The latter opens his mouth to protest, but this time Law beats him to it.

"I'm not done yet. By the end of this day, you'll have saved both my sister's life and mine, so there's no way I'm letting my rescuer rot here."

The buff male closes his gaping mouth and blinks dumbly in surrender. He looks around in the marbled lobby, raises a finger to signal  _just a second,_ and goes to fetch a tree pot, rolling it faster and faster until it shatters through the doors. Kid staggers through the hole with Law preventing him from nicking himself on the jagged pieces. 

"Sit," Law orders. With Bartolomeo on the lookout, Law administers the antivirus to the redhead. Next Law has Kid hold out his arm and cuts off the sleeve so he can clean the wound with an enhanced antiseptic, something that Law had thoughtfully tossed into the cooler as well. The wound needs proper dressing, but that will have to wait. Staying alive's more important at the present, and they don't have the equipment anyway.

For the third time, the female zombie crawls pitifully toward the group like a crippled cockroach. Bartolomeo uses the bat to shove the persistent undead away from them further this time.

"Sooo," Bartolomeo drawls while Law is repacking his cool box. "It's two more floors down until the parking exit. Before I heard the doc's screams, I went down the stairs and saw loads of zombies in the normal parking areas. I don't think we can pass through."

"What about hot-wiring that chick's car? You still remember how to do that?" Kid suggests before getting up on his feet again.

"Of course I do! Piece o'cake," Bartolomeo answers with equal casualness, making Law wonder what the hell these guys used to doing for a living. All he knows is they've been buddies since before joining the Vegapunk Laboratories.

A lone zombie wanders from the slope to the lower floor. It sights the trio and totters toward them.

"Gimme that. Wanna take out my revenge on them undead fuckers," Kid says to Bartolomeo, who tosses the bat to his pal.

"Kid?" Law utters, quite concerned about the larger male's current condition.

"Trust me, doc. I got this," Kid assures him with a cocky grin and a quirked brow. "One or two zombies ain't got nothing on me."

He waits until the corpse comes within his swinging range then clobbers it with enough force to send its jaw bone flying off its hinges.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it's a home ruuun!!" Bartolomeo announces with both gloved hands in the air.

"Fuck yeah!!" Kid whoops, doing an exaggerated fist pump. His green-haired partner sucker punches the zombie, and once it hits the ground Kid caves its skull in with his bat, then Bartolomeo abruptly unzips and pisses on the now truly dead person.

Watching the scene, Law kind of feels like he's just witnessed a pair of thugs murder some poor bloke. Their teamwork is so coordinated that it's scary.

"They're having _way_  too much fun with this," Law mumbles to himself as the two high-five over the battered corpse. Kid spits on it one last time before leading the group to the now ownerless Jaguar, which has bloody hand prints all over the driver's side. After Kid breaks the window to press the central unlock button, Bartolomeo enters the car and starts picking at some wires with a butterfly knife that he seemed to have procured out of nowhere. 

Kid opens the backseat door for Law then shuts it gently. Once Bartolomeo's got the engine purring, the redhead shoves his friend into shotgun so he can claim the driver's seat. Law buckles up just in time before Kid slams the pedal and swerves down the slope. It doesn't take long before they run into their first unfortunate zombie. Then the second. Then the fourth, and eighth, and fifteenth. 

"Out of the way, you festerin' dickheads!!"

"Hah!! That one’s eyeball popped out!"

The two men in front cackle every time a zombie that they've hit spills its guts on the windscreen. Law just hugs his cooler tight throughout the ride, praying that the car will stay in one piece until they reach their destination.

They lose the Jaguar statuette, one windscreen wiper, including both side view mirrors somewhere along the way out of the building, but soon Kid's already parking the car within the military’s safely barricaded zone.

The soldiers warily form a circle around the car that looks like it's been through hell and back. The two taller men step out of the car immediately, whereas Law just sits there for a moment, slowly re-orienting himself.

A man named Smoker opens the door for Law, who tells the white-haired officer that he requires a ride to the nearby town Flevance so he can give the cure to some hospital staff. Instead of calling an armed vehicle, Smoker calls a freaking helicopter. Moreover, since Kid needs stitching, Law drags the delinquent duo along with him.

"I ain't got no money, doc! My medical coverage blew up along with the lab," the redhead hollers over the sound of the whirling blades. Law has to convince him that he'll pay the bill for him, so just get on the damn chopper already.

Upon arriving at the hospital, Law has one of Lammy's colleagues take care of Kid.

"Please suture this man's arm. Bring him and his friend to Lammy's room when you're done."

Then he sprints to his sister's room, where their parents have come to see her, too. As a precautionary measure, she's restrained to the bed. Her skin is as pallid as a corpse's, and she would have really become one if Law failed to arrive in time to administer the cure.

After the shot, Law lets Lammy sleep the queasiness off. Their father takes off his glasses and cries in relief. Mother's tears have already run dry while waiting for Law, thinking that he might not make it within today. Some nurses help remove Lammy's restraints and Law gives the remaining antivirus vials to them for the other patients. 

Law collapses on the sofa and gets some shut eye for the rest of the evening. He awakens to someone knocking their door. His father moves to open it but Law springs to the door and is met with two towering figures blocking the doorway.

"Hiya, doc."

"Come in, come in!"

Being as tall as the door frame, the two have to stoop a bit to enter the room. They've both discarded their ruined-beyond-washing uniform shirts, now left in only the t-shirt underneath and the rather grimy gray pants. Beneath Bartolomeo's white t-shirt, Law can make the outline of some sort of gangster tattoo covering the expanse of his chest. It seems to match the twin lines tattooed beside his right eye.

"Mom, Dad, this is Kid and Bartolomeo. They're the ones who saved me from the lab. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for these guys," he says with one hand at each of the men's back, and it's funny to see a flustered Bartolomeo twisting the hem of his well-worn t-shirt like a shy maiden wringing her polka dot handkerchief. These big guys who were kick-ass fighters mere hours ago now seem like bumbling oafs, looking out of place in this pastel-colored hospital room.

Law's parents walk up to the men. Normally, his mother is terrified of the roguish types, but with Kid she grabs his band-aided meaty hands in her delicate ones without any reluctance.

"Thank you boys for bringing our son back to us, and for saving our daughter's life. Our family owes you so, _so_ much."

The two might be pros at brawling, but they are total shit at handling an emotional women who's crying her newly produced tears. Law watches in amusement as Kid babbles _It was nothing, ma'am. P-please don't cry?_

At that moment, Law's phone pings (today's events made him forget that he even _had_ a phone). He takes it out of his pocket and finds a text message from his teammate Caesar Clown. 

**《** **You alive?** **》**

 **《** **Maybe? Took you guys long enough to notice that your lead virologist is missing.** **》**

 **《** **You're not the only one missing or dead, and we were busy moving the equipment that we managed bring with us to the alternate site in Punk Hazard.** **》**

 **《** **Share me the coordinates. I'll be there in a couple of days.** **》**

 **《** **No. Come as soon as possible. We're short on manpower here. Still have lots of setting up to do.** **》**

 **《** **Kid and Bartolomeo are with me. Send someone to pick them up first at Flevance Hospital.** **》**

There's a pause in Caesar’s response, and Law knows exactly why. The other scientist hasn't been as kind toward the workers, but now that the team is lacking muscle power, it's ironic that Kid and Bartolomeo, aka 'those muscle heads', are the people that Caesar currently needs the most. The two can unload and lug containers around faster than the entire team of scrawny scientists put together.

 **«Alright.»** is Caesar’s concise reply.

Several days later, once Law's sure that Lammy's fully recovered, he goes to the Punk Hazard lab and helps his team make more of the new antivirus. The zombie pandemic has now been successfully limited to certain neighborhoods only. Lost causes are shot down whereas the recently turned ones are wrangled and given the cure.

It's going to take a lot of time before they can eradicate the Z strain, but they'll get there some day. If mankind survived the black plague, anthrax, and Ebola before then this, too, will pass.

 

 


End file.
